Contract Marriage With My Billionaire Boss (Venus and Aaron) novel Chapter 111

Chapter 111

VENUS

I woke up to stillness.

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Not the sterile, whitewashed stillness you find in hospitals or hol rooms. This was intimate. Chilling Too deliberate. The kind of quiet that feels engineered. Like the room itself was holding its breath.

No Gerald

The chair where he’d sat earlier was empty now, the cushion still slightly dented, the air still laced with the remnants of his cologne: bitter citrus and something darker underneath, like rot dressed in silk.

My head throbbed. The IV in my arm was gone, but the discomfort clung to my veins like residue. I tested my limbs one by one, slow and cautious. Every muscle ached, every joint protested but I was alive.

Barely.

Then I felt it.

A tug.

My right leg was cuffed to the bedpost.

Not cruelly. Not tight enough to bruise or restrict circulation. Just… secure. Like I was a treasured object, something precious and fragile that might wander off if left unattended.

My eyes settled on the restraint. Polished silver, clinical in its design. The keyhole stared back at me, small and mocking.

That sick bastard.

My breath steadied. I didn’t panic. Not yet. There would be time for that later, when it was safe to feel everything crashing down. But for now?

I had to think.

To remember.

Gerald.

The gala.

The first time we spoke, it had seemed harmless. Just a man in a tailored suit, offering charm and champagne, like every other trust fund brat in the room. I’d been overwhelmed by the flashbulbs, the whispers, the sharp edges of a world I hadn’t grown into yet.

“You must be Aaron’s girl,” he’d said with a smile, like he already knew.

Not asked. Knew.

And I-stupid, polite, eager to belong-smiled back. Gave him a name. Venus.

Like that wouldn’t come back to haunt me.

He watched me differently than the others. Not like Andrea, who saw me as competition. Not like the investors, who saw me as decor. No, Gerald watched me like a mirror he wanted to crack open and crawl inside.

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Chapter 11

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And I? I laughed. I smiled. I saw nothing. I handed him a piece myself and walked away like it meant nothing.

But to him?

It meant everything

Rome came next.

God. Rome

The night unraveled in fragments, each one cutting deeper than the last. I’d wandered too far from Aaron’s side, from the comfort of his possessive scowl and protective shadow. And there he was, Gerald. Like fate had tripped over itself and shoved us together.

Coincidence?

Or was he watching even then?

The gelato. The laughter. The broken phone that wasn’t broken at all-76% battery. I remembered the number clearly, like it had been etched into the underside of my eyelids.

He planned it.

Every smile. Every perfectly timed “accident.” Every step we took through those cobbled streets-it had all been engineered.

He walked me home like a gentleman, and I’d been so damn grateful. So naïve.

And then Aaron.

His face came crashing back to me. Furious. Pale with panic. Trembling between worry and rage.

“Stay the fuck away from my wife.”

He’d known. Aaron always knew. He saw it before I did.

And I-I thought he was just being controlling.

God.

I thought he was being paranoid.

When I got drunk at the club, when I let my guard down-Aaron was furious. He warned me about men like Gerald.

I didn’t take him seriously.

Back in New York, even Sabine had tried to warn me.

“He hides too well,” she said once, her voice tight. “Him and his sister? Psycho twins.”

I laughed. Shrugged it off. Told myself Gerald was just… intense A little misunderstood. The kind of man who felt too much and scared people with it.

I ignored the way his eyes lingered. The way he always seemed oo close. The way he always knew where I was.

And now?

Now I was chained to a bed like a beloved pet. Treasured. Possessed.

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Chapter III

Caged

My skin crawled.

I tried to think back, further than Rome. Further than the gala.

He said he knew me. That I’d served him at a restaurant on 5th. That I’d smiled at him. Complimented his tie.

But I couldn’t remember.

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The faces back then were all a blur: grumpy Wall Street types, distracted tourists, couples so obsessed with each other they barely noticed me.

Maybe I had smiled at him. Maybe I was kind.

But kindness should never be a death sentence.

Tears burned behind my eyes, hot and sharp. But I wouldn’t let them fall. I wouldn’t give him that. I had already given too

much.

I shifted slightly on the bed, testing the cuff again. I couldn’t slip out, not without shattering bone. It was solid, secure. But not unbreakable.

Nothing was unbreakable.

Not chains. Not lies. Not illusions.

I wouldn’t panic. Not yet.

I still had my mind. My fury.

And the bitter, searing clarity that came with being underestimated.

Because that’s what this was, wasn’t it?

He thought I’d fold. That I’d soften. That I’d fall in line.

He wanted gratitude.

He wanted docility.

He wanted love.

What he would get?

Was war.

The kind that burned slow and silent. The kind that didn’t scream-it seethed. A war that didn’t need armor or guns. Just patience. Precision. Rage wrapped in silk.

I replayed every word he’d ever said to me. Every smile, every lingering look, every eerie coincidence I’d once written off as

charm.

He’d been building this moment from the beginning.

Stalking me. Studying me. Designing this prison not out of steel and locks-but out of knowing. Out of intimacy.

That’s what made it more horrifying.

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He didn’t just want me here.

He thought I’d belong here.

He believed-truly believed-that I would understand one day that I would come to love him for this.

As if pain could ever be the foundation of devotion.

As if obsession could ever bloom into real love.

And the worst part? He thought this was romantic.

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I lay back against the pillows, jaw clenched, vision swimming. The rain tapped against the windows like a ticking clock.

He would be back soon. I knew it.

He wouldn’t leave me alone for long.

Predators never do.

And when he returned, he’d expect softness. Confusion. Gratitute.

But I’d give him none of it.

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